The bulk of the 11/11/2020 Board of Health meeting was taken up by the Covid update, but they did touch briefly on the second quarter report. The second quarter was April through June and Health Officer Eggebrecht acknowledged that they were “a little behind” in getting this report out.
Immunization numbers are down. Due to Covid people are not going in for well child checkups. AASD normally reminds parents to get their children up-to-date on their vaccines, but since AASD is virtual they’re not sending out those reminders. Health Officer Eggebrecht expressed hope that when coronavirus case counts come down parents will get their children caught up.
One Board of Health member asked if the city is still holding vaccination clinics. They’re not doing clinics now due to coronavirus. Additionally, since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, they’ve been shifting people away from city run clinics and toward their primary care providers. The city only deals with people who have fallen through health insurance cracks and/or for whom English is not their first language. The city won’t resume clinics until coronavirus numbers come down.
Dr. Vogel expressed concern about the large number of children who are not coming in for their checkups and shots. She thinks it likely that Covid will be followed by a measles or pertussis outbreak. Health Officer Eggebrecht echoed her concern and stated he was specifically worried about measles.
The discussion then moved away from vaccination rates to the health inspections that the Health Department performs. Due to Covid they haven’t been doing face to face inspections. Instead, they’ve been doing them virtually. [I’m curious how that works.] Additionally, a lot of restaurants are cutting back on their food service and some aren’t providing food at all right now.
Either Dr. Vogel or Cathy Spears (it’s hard to tell sometimes who’s speaking because of the masks) voiced dissatisfaction over the fact that there isn’t an ordinance mandating businesses be only at 25% capacity. In her opinion, having 0 people inside businesses right now would be the appropriate amount. [A statement I found fairly shocking.]
She wanted to know if inspectors were using the inspection process as an opportunity to educate all establishments about Covid and to provide guidance to any business owner who appears to be not adhering to health/safety recommendations..
Per Kurt Eggebrecht, they did educate all the business owners that they license early on and continue to educate when they’re made aware of problems. They continue to encourage the public to report problems. They respond to every complaint.
At this point, Health Officer Eggebrecht stated something that seemed concerning to me but that no one at the meeting remarked on. Complainants often like to remain anonymous, and “the majority of those follow-ups aren’t always true.” It sounds as if they’re getting a lot of bogus complaints against businesses from people who aren’t even willing to put their names behind their complaints.
He did go on to say that they don’t go in with a heavy hand but instead with the intention of offering education and support. That’s good, but it still seems concerning that they city would be soliciting complaints from the public when (a) the health department is already overworked trying to stay on top of contact tracing and (b) a majority of the complaints they’ve received have proved unfounded.
View full meeting details here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=804013&GUID=55CDF5A0-34DC-48AF-A67A-B2F643A0F0F6&Options=info%7C&Search=&Refresh=1
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